Enewsletter

Contents

Announcements & Requests

We have a lot of material to cover since the last "normal" issue.

Activities

To be part of a federal employees giving campaign, we have to list activities
by members to prove that Vegan Outreach has been active providing services in
a majority of states. If you used Vegan Outreach materials between July 1, 2000
and June 30, 2001, please write to us (info@veganoutreach.org) with as
specific a description as possible (date, place, and number of booklets). Such
as:

On November 11, 2000, Ross Strader and Eddie Lama handed out 100 copies of
Why Vegan on the streets of Manhattan.

We really need these. Thanks a lot!

Stickers

We now have an improved printing of the bumper sticker: Boycott Cruelty: Go
Vegan.

Anyone who received a poorly-aligned version can contact us for a free updated
one.

Why Vegan?

We are basically out of Why Vegan? booklets. We have a delay in printing
because we are coming out with a new version. It is our hope that we'll be
able to print the next version by the middle of October. Until then, we won't
be able to send out large quantities; feel free to order copies of Vegetarian
Living in the meantime.

News

Christian and Jewish Materials

PETA has just produced Christian
and Jewish vegetarian cassettes, and a pamphlet on Christianity and vegetarianism.
The Christian cassette/pamphlet was done by Fr. John Dear, S.J. As far as we're
aware, this is the first time a member of the Catholic clergy has spoken out
in favor of vegetarianism in print, and we've certainly never heard such an
unequivocal argument from a member of the Catholic clergy.

Recent Research Supports the Longevity of a Healthy Lifestyle

Life expectancies in the Adventist Health Study were published in the July
issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. (1) The results showed that white,
non-Hispanic Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) live longer than other white Californians
(7.28 years longer for men and 4.42 years longer for women). In fact, these
SDA appear to be the longest-lived, formerly studied population in the world!
Their life expectancies are 78.5 years for men and 82.3 for women. In this group
of 34,192 people, 29% were vegetarians and 7-10% of the vegetarians were vegan.
(2)

The following variables were shown to increase life expectancy: vegetarian
diet, eating nuts regularly, physical activity, lower body weight, and no smoking.
The only other variable looked at was hormone replacement therapy for women
which possibly contributed to increased life expectancy.

Fraser GE, Shavlik DJ. Ten years of life: Is it a matter of choice? Arch
Intern Med. 2001 Jul 9;161(13):1645-52.

I'm a volunteer with Vegan Action and Vegan Outreach. I read the news announcement
about the petri dish meat earlier today and was quite encouraged by it. I
do not expect 99% of Americans to go vegan in my lifetime. Knowing that most
people wish to continue eating something that tastes like meat, how can we
reduce animal suffering? One promising way is to provide meat substitutes.
These can be made from 1) vegetables only (Boca's vegan burger), 2) a combination
of vegetables and animal products (Morningstar's burger), or 3) animal tissue
cultures (the example below). All three are, I believe, great improvements
over traditional meat. The tissue cultures have no sentience attached to them
– no brain or nerve tissue is cultured. Likewise, the only suffering involved
is that experienced by the animal donor, whose donated cells go a long way.
I suspect the suffering of the donors is not nearly as great as the suffering
of dairy cows and layer chickens involved in the production of non-vegan veggiemeats.
So unless one takes the hardline stance that 'nothing short of pure veganism'
is an improvement over current factory farming, I think tissue cultures offer
significant advantages over traditional meat, and even non-vegan veggiemeats.
The number of animal donors necessary for feeding the country with tissue
culture 'meat' could not possibly compare to the current number of animals
raised for meat. And, as the technique improves, it will probably be possible
to clone cells ad infinitum, requiring no future donors. To me this is a vast
improvement over 10 billion animals per year being slaughtered in factory
farms because consumers like the taste of 'the real thing'. My only concern
about the project is that tissue culture meat may sound too frightening for
consumers to try it.

Book Review: Judaism and Vegetarianism

by Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Lantern Books, 2001

Reviewed for Vegan Outreach by Jeremy Yocum

The cover of this book shows, in six frames, carrots being added to one another
to form a Star of David. While attractive, this may leave non-Jews wondering
how it's relevant to them. In the preface Schwartz outlines the main arguments
of the book, and they are all related to Judaism: Jews should make dietary decisions
based on "basic Jewish values," Judaism and vegetarianism are not
opposed to one another, and vegetarianism is consistent with the Jewish values
of being "concerned about both animals and people." (xvii). I, however,
found Judaism and Vegetarianism to be an interesting and informative
read, and would recommend it to anyone from strict vegans to those just considering
vegetarianism regardless of their faith. It is loaded with well-documented information
from reliable sources about the health and ecological benefits of plant-based
diets, and has an impressive bibliography. The entire first chapter of the book
is devoted to the ethical considerations of diet. While many of Schwartz's sources
for ethics are Rabbinical authority, he draws a good deal from the Torah, part
of the Christians‚ Old Testament. His "vegetarian view of the Bible"
(1) may be useful for outreach to those of a Judeo Christian background, which
covers a large segment of the population.

Many people reject vegetarian and vegan diets based on Biblical passages in
which God grants permission to eat meat. Schwartz counters this with the earliest
dietary passages that grant permission only to eat plants: Genesis 2:16 and
3:18. He points out that after permission was granted to eat meat, in Genesis
9:3, the recorded life spans are shortened by hundreds of years. He, along with
many Rabbinical authorities, interprets the permission to eat meat as a concession
by God to the lust of humankind. Referring to Genesis 9:2, he concludes that
with this concession the "previous harmony between people and animals"
ceased to exist. (4-5).

The second through sixth chapters are split into two sections, one examining
an area of Jewish values and one explaining vegetarianism‚s relevance to those
values. This is the main body of the book, and it addresses compassion for animals,
health, feeding the hungry, ecology, and peace. While many non-Jewish readers
may skip the lengthy discussions of Jewish law and tradition, I found them fascinating
glimpses into another culture. Each chapter is also nearly encyclopedic in its
description of the modern state of animal agriculture. I considered myself to
be a well-read vegan before picking up this book, yet I learned a great deal
of important and startling information. I did think that Schwartz drew a little
too much information from pro-vegetarian sources, which may damage the credibility
of these facts to those who are critical of veganism. While I found that these
sources were credible and that their information was in turn gathered from unbiased
sources, some readers may not be patient enough to do the homework. To be fair,
though, at least half of the sources are non-vegetarian, such as agriculture
experts and mathematicians.

The last several chapters consider vegetarian questions related to Judaism,
general vegetarian questions, advice on becoming and staying a vegetarian, Jewish
vegetarian groups, and biographies of famous vegetarian Jews. The advice chapter
even discusses how to handle a marriage where only one spouse is vegetarian,
with advice for the meat-eater as well. The appendix includes the author‚s story
of converting to vegetarianism in 1978, and ideas for vegetarian activism. The
extensive bibliography includes Jewish sources, general sources, health and
nutrition sources, vegetarian recipe books, and religious or philosophical books
all related to vegetarianism. Then follows an exhaustive index which makes this
book great for reference.

This book does focus a lot on the cruelty and health problems related to egg
and milk consumption, and many vegan cookbooks are included in the bibliography,
but I feel like there is a lack of adequate support for anyone who wishes to
go completely vegan. I agree with Schwartz's assessment that lacto-ovo vegetarians
are "people who have made an important ethical decision, but who have not
yet gone as far as possible" (145). However there is only one vegan organization
listed in the appendix, the Vegetarians and Vegans Society. Schwartz lists ten
websites, explaining that out of "literally hundreds, if not thousands,
of valuable sites related to vegetarian groups" he chose only those that
he found "especially valuable" (145). Not a single one is specifically
vegan. Schwartz is apparently very supportive of veganism, yet the emphasis
of this book is mostly vegetarian.

In all, however, Schwartz makes a strong case for anyone, particularly Jews,
to consider vegetarianism as a single step toward positively affecting the world
in a number of ways. Far from feeling alienated as a non-Jew I found the book
to be culturally educational and even learned something about an issue on which
I considered myself an expert. From the eye-catching cover to the quite practical
bibliography and index I found this an incredibly useful and interesting read
that I would recommend to anyone.